Chapter Thirteen: Ladysmith

Arthur Conan Doyle

Credits

Chapter Thirteen of the author’s The Great Boer War, which Smith, Elder, & Co. published in 1900. This web version is based on the Internet Archive version digitized from an unidentified library in 2010 with funding from the Lyrasis Members and Sloan Foundation.

In 2014 George P. Landow created this Victorian Web version, editing the text from the slightly rough Internet Archive OCR and added images and links to material on this site.

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Notes

1. More than once I have heard the farmers in the Free State
acknowledge that the ruin which had come upon them was a just
retribution for the excesses of Natal.

2. The destruction of the Creusot was not as complete as was hoped.
It was taken back to Pretoria, three feet were sawn off the muzzle, and
a new breech-block provided. The gun was then sent to Kimberley, and
it was the heavy cannon which arrived late in the history of that siege
and caused considerable consternation among the inhabitants.

4.
The Gordons and the Sappers were there that morning to re-escort
one of Lambton’s 4.7 guns, which was to be mounted there. Ten seamen
were with the gun, and lost three of their number in the defence.

onday, October 30th, 1899, is not a date
which can be
looked back to with satisfaction by any Briton. In a
scramblng and ill-managed action we had lost our
detached left wing almost to a man, while our right had
been hustled with no great loss but with some ignominy
into Ladysmith. Our guns had been outshot, our
infantry checlied, and our cavalry paralysed. Eight
hundred prisoners may seem no great loss when compared
with a Sedan, or even with an Ulm; but such
matters are comparative, and the force which laid down
its arms at Nicholson’s Nek is the largest British force
which has surrendered since the days of our great
grandfathers, when the egregious Duke of York commanded
in Flanders.

Battle of Dundee (Glencoe), October 20, 1899 by A Suthrland. 1899. First in collection of 7 chromolithographic plates of panoramic battle scenes, by Sutherland. In this one the British infantry in red and blue uniforms surrounds and attacks the enemy on hilltop. Click on image to enlarge it.

Sir George White was now confronted with the
certainty of an investment, an event for which apparently
no preparation had been made, since with an
open railway behind him so many useless mouths had
been permitted to remain in the town. Ladysmith lies
in a hollow and is dominated by a ring of hills, some
near and some distant. The near ones were in our
hands, but no attempt had been made in the early
days of the war to fortify and hold Bulwana, Lombard’s Kop, and the other positions from which the
town might be shelled. Whether these might or might
[206/207]
not have been successfully held has been much disputed
by military men, the balance of opinion being that
Bulwana, at least, which has a water-supply of its own,
might have been retained. This question, however, was
already academic, as the outer hills were in the hands of
the enemy. As it was, the inner line — Csesar’s Camp,
Waggon Hill, Rifleman’s Post, and round to Helpmakaar
Hill — made a perimeter of fourteen miles, and the difficulty
of retaining so extensive a line goes far to exonerate
General White, not only for abandoning the outer hills,
but also for retaining his cavalry in the town.

After the battle of Lombard’s Kop and the retreat of
the British, the Boers in their dehberate but effective
fashion set about the investment of the town, while the
British commander accepted the same as inevitable, content
if he could stem and hold back from the colony the
threatened flood of invasion. On Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, and Friday the commandoes gradually closed
in upon the south and east, harassed by some cavalry
operations and reconnaissances upon our part, the effect
of which was much exaggerated by the press. On
Thursday, November 2nd, the last train escaped under a
brisk fire, the passengers upon the wrong side of the seats.
At 2 P.M. on the same day the telegraph line was cut, and
the lonely town settled herself sombrely down to the task
of holding off the exultant Boers until the day — supposed
to be imminent — when the relieving army should appear
from among the labyrinth of mountains which lay to the
south of them. Some there were who, knowing both
the enemy and the mountains, felt a cold chill within
their hearts as they asked themselves how an army was
to come through, but the greater number, from general
to private, trusted implicitly in the valour of their
comrades and in the luck of the British Army. [207/208]

One example of that historical luck was ever before
their eyes in the shape of those invaluable naval guns
which had arrived so dramatically at the very crisis
of the fight, in time to check the monster on Pepworth
Hill and to cover the retreat of the army. But for them
the besieged must have lain impotent under the muzzles
of the huge Creusots.5 But in spite of the naive claims
put forward by the Boers to some special Providence —
a process which a friendly German critic described as
‘commandeering the Almighty’ — it is certain that in a
very peculiar degree, in the early months of this war
there came again and again a happy chance, or a
merciful interposition, which saved the British from disaster.
Now in this first week of November, when every hill,
north and south and east and west, flashed and smoked,
and the great 96-pound shells groaned and screamed
over the town, it was to the long thin 4.7’s and to the
hearty bearded men who worked them, that soldiers and
townsfolk looked for help. These guns of Lambton’s,
supplemented by two old-fashioned 6-3 howitzers manned
by survivors from No. 10 Mountain Battery, did all that
was possible to keep down the fire of the heavy Boer guns.
If they could not save, they could at least hit back, and
punishment is not so bad to bear when one is giving as
well as receiving.

By the end of the first week of November the Boers
had established their circle of fire. On the east of the
town, broken by the loops of the Klip River, is a broad
green plain, some miles in extent, which furnished
grazing ground for the horses and cattle of the besieged.
Beyond it rises into a long flat-topped hill the famous
Bulwana, upon which lay one great Creusot and several
smaller guns. To the north, on Pepworth Hill, was
another Creusot, and between the two were the Boer
batteries upon Lombard’s Kop. The British naval guns
[208/209]
were placed upon this side, for, as the open loop formed
by the river lies at this end, it is the part of the
defences which is most liable to assault. From thence
all round the west down to Besters in the south was
a continuous series of hills, each crowned with Boer
guns, which, if they could not harm the distant town,
were at least effective in holding the garrison to its
lines. So formidable were these positions that, amid
much outspoken criticism, it has never been suggested
that White would have been justified with a limited
garrison in incurring the heavy loss of life which must
have followed an attempt to force them.

The first few days of the siege were clouded by the
death of Lieutenant Egerton of the Powerful, one of
the most promising officers in the Navy. One leg and
the other foot were carried off, as he lay upon the sandbag parapet
watching the effect of our fire. ‘There’s an
end of my cricket,’ said the gallant sportsman, and he was
carried to the rear with a cigar between his clenched teeth.

On November 3rd a strong cavalry reconnaissance was
pushed down the Colenso road to ascertain the force
which the enemy had in that direction. Colonel
Brocklehurst took with him the 18th and 19th Hussars, the
5th Lancers and the 5th Dragoon Guards, with the
Light Horse and the Natal Volunteers. Some desultory
fighting ensued which achieved no end, and was chiefly
remarkable for the excellent behaviour of the Colonials,
who showed that they were the equals of the Regulars in
gallantry and their superiors in the tactics which such a
country requires. The death of Major Taunton, Captain
Kuapp, and young Brabant, the son of the general who
did such good service at a later stage of the war, was a
heavy price to pay for the knowledge that the Boers
were in considerable strength to the south. [209/210]

Left:
General Piet Joubert by F. Leiber from a picture with nine Boer military figures.
Right: General Joubert with son-in-law, Malan, and his Secretary Bracht, in his tent before Ladysmith from Rompel’s Heroes of the Boer War, a book offering a Boer view of the conflict. Click on images to enlarge them.

By the end of this week the town had ah-eady settled
down to the routine of the siege. General Joubert, with
the chivalry which had always distinguished him, had
permitted the garrison to send out the non-combatants
to a place called Intombi Camp (promptly named Funkersdorp
by the facetious) where they were safe from the
shells, though the burden of their support still fell of
course upon the much-tried commissariat. The hale
and male of the townsfolk refused for the most part
to avoid the common danger, and clung tenaciously
to their shot-torn village. Fortunately the river has
worn down its banks until it runs through a deep
channel, in the sides of which it was found to be possible
to hollow out caves which were practically bomb-proof.
Here for some months the townsfolk led a troglodytic
existence, returning to their homes upon that much-appreciated
seventh day of rest which was granted to
them by their Sabbatarian besiegers.

The perimeter of the defence had been divided off so
that each corps might be responsible for its own section.
To the south was the Manchester Regiment upon the
hill called Caesar’s Camp. Between Lombard’s Kop and
the town, on the north-east, were the Devons. To the
north, at what seemed our vulnerable point, were the
Rifle Brigade, the Rifles, and the remains of the 18th
Hussars. To the west were the 5th Lancers, 19th
Hussars, and 5th Dragoon Guards. The rest of the
force was encamped round the outskirts of the town.

There appears to have been some idea in the Boer
mind that the mere fact that they held a dominant
position over the town would soon necessitate the
surrender of the army. At the end of a week they had
realised, however, just as the British had, that a siege
lay before both. Their fire upon the town was heavy
[210/211]
but not deadly, though it became more effective as the
weeks went on. Their practice at a range of five miles
was exceedingly accurate. At the same time their
riflemen became more venturesome, and on Tuesday,
November 7th, they made a half-hearted attack upon
the Manchesters' position on the south, which was
driven back without difficulty. On the 9th, however,
their attempt was of a more serious and sustained
character. It began with a heavy shell-fire and with
a demonstration of rifle-fire from every side, which had
for its object the prevention of reinforcements for the
true point of danger, which again was Caesar’s Camp
at the south. It is evident that the Boers had from
the beginning made up their minds that here lay the
key of the position, as the two serious attacks — that of
November 9th and that of January 6th — were directed
upon this point.

The Manchesters at Caesar’s Camp had been reinforced
by the 1st battalion 60th Rifles, who held the prolongation
of the same ridge, which is called Waggon Hill.
"With the dawn it was found that the Boer riflemen were
within eight hundred yards, and from then till evening
a constant fire was maintained upon the hill. The Boer,
however, save when the odds are all in his favour, is not,
in spite of his considerable personal bravery, at his best
in attack. His racial traditions, depending upon the
necessity for economy of human life, are all opposed to
it. As a consequence two regiments well posted were
able to hold them off all day with a loss which did
not exceed thirty killed and wounded, while the enemy,
exposed to the shrapnel of the 42nd battery, as well
as the rifle-fire of the infantry, must have suffered
very much more severely. The result of the action was
a well-grounded belief that in daylight there was very
[211/212]
little chance of the Boers being able to carry the lines.
As the date was that of the Prince of Wales’s birthday,
a salute of twenty-one shotted naval guns wound up a
successful day.

The failure of the attempt upon Ladysmith seems
to have convinced the enemy that a waiting game,
in which hunger, shell-fire, and disease were their
allies, would be surer and less expensive than an open
assault. From their distant hilltops they continued to
plague the town, while garrison and citizens sat grimly
patient, and learned to endure if not to enjoy the crash
of the 96-pound shells, and the patter of shrapnel upon
their corrugated-iron roofs. The supplies were adequate,
and the besieged were fortunate in the presence of a
first-class organiser, Colonel Ward of Islington fame, who
with the assistance of Colonel Stoneman systematised
the collection and issue of all the food, civil and military,
so as to stretch it to its utmost. With rain overhead
and mud underfoot, chafing at their own idleness and
humiliated by their own position, the soldiers waited
through the weary weeks for the relief which never
came. On some days there was more shell-fire, on
some less; on some there was sniping, on some none;
on some they sent a little feeler of cavalry and guns out
of the town, on most they lay still — such were the ups
and downs of life in Ladysmith. The inevitable siege
paper, ‘The Ladysmith Lyre,’ appeared, and
did something to reheve the monotony by the exasperation of its
jokes. Night, morning, and noon the shells rained upon
the town until the most timid learned fatalism if not
bravery. The crash of the percussion, and the strange
musical tang of the shrapnel sounded ever in their ears.
With their glasses the garrison could see the gay frocks
and parasols of the Boer ladies who had come down by
train to see the torture of the doomed town.
[212/213]

The Boers were sufficiently numerous, aided by
their strong positions and excellent artillery, to mask
the Ladysmith force and to sweep on at once to the
conquest of Natal. Had they done so it is hard to see
what could have prevented them from riding their
horses down to salt water. A few odds and ends, half
battalions and local volunteers, stood between them and
Durban. But here, as on the Orange River, a singular
paralysis seems to have struck them. When the road
lay clear before them the first transports of the army
corps were hardly past St. Vincent, but before they had
made up their mind to take that road the harbour of
Durban was packed with our shipping and ten thousand
men had thrown themselves across their path.

For a moment we may leave the fortunes of Ladysmith
to follow this southerly movement of the Boers.
Within two days of the investment of the town they had
swung round their left flank and attacked Colenso,
twelve miles south, shelling the Durban Light Infantry
out of their post with a long-range fire. The British
fell back twenty-seven miles and concentrated at
Estcourt, leaving the all-important Colenso railway
bridge in the hands of the enemy. From this onwards
they held the north of the Tugela, and many a widow
wore crepe before we got our grip upon it once more.
Never was there a more critical week in the war, but
having got Colenso the Boers did little more. They
formally annexed the whole of Northern Natal to the
Orange Free State — a dangerous precedent when the
tables should be turned. With amazing assurance the
burghers pegged out farms for themselves and sent for
their people to occupy these newly won estates.

On November 5th the Boers had remained so inert
that the British returned in small force to Colenso and
removed some stores — which seems to suggest that the
[213/214]
original retirement was premature. Four days passed
in inactivity — four precious days for us — and on the
evening of the fourth, November 9th, the watchers on the
signal station at Table Mountain saw the smoke of a
great steamer coming past Kobben Island. It was the
Roslin Castle with the first of the reinforcements.
Within the week the Moor, Yorkshire, Aurania, Hawarden Castle, Gascon, Armenian, Oriental, and
a fleet of others had passed for Durban with 15,000 men.
Once again the command of the sea had saved the
Empire.

But, now that it was too late, the Boers suddenly
took the initiative, and in dramatic fashion. North of
Estcourt, where General Hildyard was being daily
reinforced from the sea, there are two small townlets,
or at least geographical (and railway) points. Frere is
about ten miles north of Estcourt, and Chieveley is five
miles north of that and about as far to the south of
Colenso. On November 15th an armoured train was
dispatched from Estcourt to see what was going on up
the line. Already one disaster had befallen us in this
campaign on account of these clumsy contrivances, and
a heavier one was now to confirm the opinion that,
acting alone, they are totally inadmissible. As a means
of carrying artillery for a force operating upon either
flank of them, with an assured retreat behind, there
may be a place for them in modern war, but as a method
of scouting they appear to be the most inefficient and
also the most expensive that has ever been invented.
An intelligent horseman would gather more information,
be less visible, and retain some freedom as to route.
After our experience the armoured train may steam out
of military history.

Winston Churchill as a War
Correspondent. Mortimer Menpes. Click on image to enlarge it.

The train contained ninety Dublin Fusiliers, eighty
[214/215]
Durban Volunteers, and ten sailors, with a naval
7-pounder gun. Captain Haldane of the Gordons,
Lieutenant Frankland (Dublin Fusiliers), and Winston
Churchill, the well-known correspondent, accompanied
the expedition. What might have been foreseen occurred.
The train steamed into the advancing Boer army, was
fired upon, tried to escape, found the rails blocked
behind it, and upset. Dublins and Durbans were shot
helplessly out of their trucks, under a heavy fire. A
railway accident is a nervous thing, and so is an
ambuscade, but the combination of the two must be
appalling. Yet there were brave hearts which rose
to the occasion. Haldane and Frankland rallied the
troops, and Churchill the engine-driver. The engine
was disentangled and sent on with its cab full of wounded.
Churchill, who had escaped upon it, came gallantly back
to share the fate of his comrades. The dazed shaken
soldiers continued a futile resistance for some time, but
there was neither help nor escape and nothing for them
but surrender. The most Spartan military critic cannot
blame them. A few slipped away besides those who
escaped upon the engine. Our losses were two killed,
twenty wounded, and about eighty taken. It is
remarkable that of the three leaders both Haldane and Churchill
succeeded in escaping from Pretoria.

A double tide of armed men was now pouring into
Southern Natal. From below, trainload after trainload of
British regulars were coming up to the danger point,
feted and cheered at every station. Lonely farmhouses
near the line hung out their Union Jacks, and the folk
on the stoep heard the roar of the choruses as the great
trains swung upon their way. From above the Boers
were flooding down, as Churchill saw them, dour,
resolute, riding silently through the rain, or chanting
[215/216]
hymns round their camp fires — brave honest farmers,
but standing unconsciously for mediaevalism and corruption,
even as our rough-tongued Tommies stood for
civilisation, progress, and equal rights for all men.

The invading force, the numbers of which could not
have exceeded some few thousands, formidable only for
their mobility, lapped round the more powerful but less
active force at Estcourt, and struck behind it at its
communications. There was for a day or two some
discussion as to a further retreat, but Hildyard,
strengthened by the advice and presence of Colonel
Long, determined to hold his ground. On November 21st the raiding
Boers were as far south as Nottingham Eoad, a point
thirty miles south of Estcourt and only forty miles
north of the considerable city of Pietermaritzburg.
The situation was serious. Either the invaders must
be stopped, or the second largest town in the colony
would be in their hands. From all sides came tales of
plundered farms and broken households. Some at least
of the raiders behaved with wanton brutality. Smashed
pianos, shattered pictures, slaughtered stock, and vile
inscriptions, all exhibit a predatory and violent side to
the paradoxical Boer character.1

The next British post behind Hildgard’s at Estcourt
was Barton’s upon the Mooi River, thirty miles to the
south. Upon this the Boers made a half-hearted
attempt, but Joubert had begun to realise the strength
of the British reinforcements and the impossibility with
the numbers at his disposal of investing a succession ol
British posts. He ordered Botha to withdraw from Mooi
River and begin his northerly trek.
[216/217]

General Louis Botha from De Aanvoerders van hut Heldhaftige Boernleger. Courtesy of the Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University. Click on image to enlarge it.

His movements were accelerated by a sally made by
General Hildyard from Estcourt to clear the Boers out
of the strong position which they had taken up to the
south of him. With this object a force was sent out
which consisted of the East Surreys, the West Surreys,
and the West Yorkshires, with No. 7 Field Battery, two
naval guns, and some hundreds of the excellent colonial
cavalry. This small army, starting from Willow Grange
(which has given its name to the engagement), climbed
a steep hill and attacked the enemy at early dawn.
A scrambling and confused skirmish, in which once
at least we suffered from our own fire, ended in our
attaining the object of clearing the position, but at a cost
of fourteen killed and fifty wounded or missing. From
the action of Willow Grange the Boer invasion receded
until General Buller coming to the front on November
27th found that the enemy were once more occupying the
line of the Tugela. He himself moved up to Frere and
devoted his time and energies to the collection of that
force with which he was destined after three failures
to force his way to Ladysmith.

Leaving Buller to organise his army at Frere, and
the Boer commanders to draw their screen of formidable
defences along the Tugela, we will return once more to
the fortunes of the unhappy town round which the
interest of the world, and possibly the destiny of the
Empire, were centring. It is very certain that had
Ladysmith fallen, and ten thousand British soldiers with
a million pounds' worth of stores fallen into the hands of
the invaders, we should have been faced with the
alternative of abandoning the struggle, or of reconquering
South Africa from Cape Town northwards. South Africa
is the keystone of the Empire, and for the instant
Ladysmith was the keystone of South Africa. But the
[217/218]
courage of the troops who held the shell-torn townlet,
and the confidence of the public who watched them, never
faltered for an mstant.

December 8th was marked by a gallant exploit on the
part of the beleaguered garrison. Not a whisper had
transpired of the coming sortie, and a quarter of an hour
before the start officers engaged had no idea of it. Si
sic omnia! At ten o'clock a band of men slipped out of
the town. There were six hundred of them, all irregulars,
drawn from the Imperial Light Horse, the Natal
Carabineers, and the Border Mounted Rifles, under
the command of Hunter, youngest and most dashing of
British Generals. Edwardes and Eoyston were the
subcommanders. The men had no knowledge of where
they were going or what they had to do, but they crept
silently along under a drifting sky, with peeps of a quarter
moon, over a mimosa-shadowed plain. At last in front
of them there loomed a dark mass — it was Gun Hill,
from which one of the great Creusots had plagued
them. A strong support (four hundred men) was left
at the base of the hill, and the others, one hundred
Imperials, one hundred Borders and Carabineers, ten
Sappers, crept upwards with Major Henderson as
guide. A Dutch outpost challenged, but was satisfied
by a Dutch-speaking Carabineer. Higher and higher
the men crept, the silence broken only by the occasional
slip of a stone or the rustle of their own breathing.
Most of them had left their boots below. Even
in the darkness they kept some formation, and the
right wing curved forward to outflank the defence.
Suddenly a Mauser crack and a spurt of flame — then
another and another! ‘Come on, boys! Fix bayonets!’
yelled Karri Davies. There were no bayonets, but that
was a detail. At the word the gunners were off, and there
[218/219]
in the darkness in front of the storming party loomed
the enormous gun, gigantic in that uncertain light. Out
with the huge breech-block! Wrap the long lean muzzle
round with a collar of gun-cotton! Keep the guard
upon the run until the work is done! Hunter stood by
with a night light in his hand until the charge was in
position, and then, with a crash which brought both
armies from their tents, the huge tube reared up on its
mountings and toppled backwards into the pit. A
howitzer lurked beside it, and this also was blown into
ruin. The attendant Maxim was dragged back by the
exultant captors, who reached the town amid shoutings
and laughter with the first break of day. One man
wounded, the gallant Henderson, is the cheap price for
the best-planned and most dashing exploit of the war.
Secrecy in conception, vigour in execution — they are the
root ideas of the soldier’s craft. So easily was the
enterprise carried out, and so defective the Boer watch,
that it is probable that if all the guns had been
simultaneously attacked the Boers might have found
themselves without a single piece of ordnance in the
morning.2

On the same morning (December 9th) a cavalry
reconnaissance was pushed in the direction of Pepworth Hill.
The object no doubt was to ascertain whether the
enemy were still present in force, and the terrific roll of
the Mausers answered it in the affirmative. Two killed
and twenty wounded was the price which we paid for
the information. There had been three such reconnaissances
in the five weeks of the siege, and it is difficult
[219/220]
to see what advantage they gave or how they are to be
justitied. Far be it for the civihan to dogmatise upon
such matters, but one can repeat, and to the best of
one’s judgment endorse, the opinion of the vast majority
of officers.

There were heartburnings among the Regulars that
the colonial troops should have gone in front of them,
so their martial jealousy was allayed three nights
later by the same task being given to them. Four
companies of the 2nd Piifle Brigade were the troops chosen,
with a few sajppers and gunners, the whole under the
command of Colnel Metcalfe of the same battalion. A
single gun, the 4.7 howitzer upon Surprise Hill, was
the objective. Again there was the stealthy advance
through the darkness, again the support was left at the
bottom of the hill, again the two companies carefully
ascended, again there was the challenge, the rush, the
flight, and the gun was in the hands of the stormers.

Here and only here the story varies. For some
reason the fuse used for the guncotton was defective,
and half an hour elapsed before the explosion destroyed
the howitzer. When it came it came very thoroughly,
but it was a weary time in coming. Then our men
descended the hill, but the Boers were already crowding
in upon them from either side. The English cries of
the soldiers were answered in English by the Boers, and
slouch hat or helmet dimly seen in the mirk was the
only badge of friend or foe. A singular letter is extant
from young Reitz (the son of the Transvaal secretary),
who was present. According to his account there were
but eight Boers present, but assertion or contradiction
is equally valueless in the darkness of such a night, and
there are some obvious discrepancies in his statement.
‘We fired among them,’ says Reitz.

They stopped and
[220/221]
all cried out ‘Rifle Brigade.’ Then one of them said
‘Charge!’ One officer, Captain Paley, advanced, thoughhe
had two bullet wounds already. Joubert gave him another
shot and he fell on the top of us. Four Englishmen got
hold of Jan Luttig and struck him on the head with their
rifles and stabbed him in the stomach with a bayonet.
He seized two of them by the throat and shouted ‘Help,
boys!’ His two nearest comrades shot two of them,
and the other two bolted. Then the English came up
in numbers, about eight hundred, along the footpath
[there were two hundred on the hill, but the exaggeration is pardonable in the darkness], and we lay as quiet
as mice along the bank. Farther on the English killed
three of our men with bayonets and wounded two. In
the morning we found Captain Paley and twenty-two of
them killed and wounded.

It seems evident that Reitz
means that his own little party were eight men, and not
that that represented the force which intercepted the
retiring riflemen. Within his own knowledge five of
his countrymen were killed in the scuffle, so the total
loss was probably considerable. Our own casualties
were eleven dead, forty-three wounded, and six prisoners,
but the price was not excessive for the howitzer and
for the morale which arises from such exploits. Had it
not been for that unfortunate fuse, the second success
might have been as bloodless as the first. ‘ I am sorry,’
said a sympathetic correspondent to the stricken Paley.
‘But we got the gun,’ Paley whispered, and he spoke for
the Brigade.

Amid the shell-lire, the scanty rations, the enteric
and the dysentery, one ray of comfort had always
brightened the garrison. Buller was only twelve miles
away — they could hear his guns — and when his advance
came in earnest their sufferings would be at an end.
[221/222]
But now in an instant this single light was shut off and
the true nature of their situation was revealed to them.
Buller had indeed moved . . . but backwards. He had
been defeated at Colenso, and
the siege was not ending but beginning. With heavier hearts but undiminished
resolution the army and the townsfolk settled down to
the long, dour struggle. The exultant enemy replaced
their shattered guns and drew their lines closer still
round the stricken town.

A record of the siege onwards until the break of the
New Year centres upon the sordid details of the sick
returns and of the price of food. Fifty on one day, seventy
on the next, passed under the hands of the overworked
and devoted doctors. Fifteen hundred, and later two
thousand, of the garrison were down. The air was
poisoned by foul sewage and dark with obscene flies.
They speckled the scanty food. Eggs were already a
shilling each, cigarettes sixpence, whisky five pounds a
bottle: a city more free from gluttony and drunkenness
has never been seen.

Shell-fire has shown itself in this war to be an
excellent ordeal for those who desire martial excitement
with a minimum of danger. But now and again some
black chance guides a bomb — one in five thousand
perhaps — to a most tragic issue. Such a deadly missile
falling among Boers near Kimberley is said to have slain
nine and wounded seventeen. In Ladysmith too there are
days to be marked in red when the gunner shot better
than he knew. One shell on December 17th killed six
men (Natal Carabineers), wounded three, and destroyed
fourteen horses. The grisly fact has been recorded that five
separate human legs lay upon the ground. On December
22nd another tragic shot killed five and wounded twelve
of the Devons. On the same day four officers of the
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5th Lancers (including the Colonel) and one sergeant
were wounded — a most disastrous day. A little later it
was again the turn of the Devons, who lost one officer
killed and ten wounded. Christmas set in amid misery,
hunger, and disease, the more piteous for the grim
attempts to amuse the children and live up to the joyous
season, when the present of Santa Claus was too often a
96-pound shell. On the top of all other troubles it was
now known that the heavy ammunition was running short
and must be husbanded for emergencies. There was no
surcease, however, in the constant hail which fell upon
the town. Two or three hundred shells were a not
unusual daily allowance.

The monotonous bombardment with which the New
Year had commenced was soon to be varied by a
most gallant and spirit-stirring clash of arms. On January 6th
the Boers delivered their great assault upon Ladysmith
— an onfall so gallantly made and gallantly met that it
deserves to rank among the classic fights of British
military history. It is a tale which neither side need
be ashamed to tell. Honour to the sturdy infantry
who held their grip so long, and honour also to the
rough men of the veldt, who, led by untrained civilians,
stretched us to the utmost capacity of our endurance.

It may be that the Boers wished once for all to have
done at all costs with the constant menace to their rear,
or it may be that the deliberate preparations of Buller
for his second advance had alarmed them, and that they
realised that they must act quickly if they were to act
at all. At any rate, early in the New Year a most
determined attack was decided upon. The storming
party consisted of some hundreds of picked volunteers
from the Heidelberg (Transvaal) and Harrismith (Free
State) contingents, led by de Villiers. They were
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supported by several thousand riflemen, who might
secure their success or cover their retreat. Eighteen
heavy guns had been trained upon the long ridge, one
end of which has been called Caesar’s Camp and the
other Waggon Hill. This hill, three miles long, lay to
the south of the town, and the Boers had early recognised
it as being the most vulnerable point, for it was against
it that their attack of November 9th had been directed.
Now, after two months, they were about to renew the
attempt with greater resolution against less robust
opponents. At twelve o'clock our scouts heard the
sounds of the chanting of hymns in the Boer camps.
At two in the morning crowds of barefooted men were
clustering round the base of the ridge, and threading
their way, rifle in hand, among the mimosa-bushes and
scattered boulders which cover the slope of the hill.
Some working parties were moving guns into position,
and the noise of their labour helped to drown the sound
of the Boer advance. Both at Caesar’s Camp, the east
end of the ridge, and at Waggon Hill, the west end (the
points being, I repeat, three miles apart), the attack
came as a complete surprise. The outposts were shot
or driven in, and the stormers were on the ridge almost
as soon as their presence was detected. The line of rocks
blazed with the flash of their guns.

Caesar’s Camp was garrisoned by one sturdy regiment,
the Manchesters, aided by a Colt automatic gun. The
defence had been arranged in the form of small sangars,3
each held by from ten to twenty men. Some few of
these were rushed in the darkness, but the Lancashire
men pulled themselves together and held on strenuously
to those which remained. The crash of musketry woke
the bleeping town, and the streets resounded with the
shouting of the officers and the rattling of arms as the
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men mustered in the darliiiess and hurried to the points
of danger.

Three companies of the Gordons had been left near
Caesar’s Camp, and these, under Captain Carnegie, threw
themselves into the struggle. Four other companies of
Gordons came up in support from the town, losing upon
the way their splendid colonel, Dick-Cunyngham, who
was killed by a chance shot at three thousand yards, on
this his first appearance since he had recovered from his
wounds at Elandslaagte. Later four companies
of the Rifle
Brigade were thrown into the firing line, and a total of two
and a half infantry battalions held that end of the position.
It was not a man too much. With the dawn of day it
could be seen that the Boers held the southern and we
the northern slopes, while the narrow plateau between
formed a bloody debateable ground. Along a front of a
quarter of a mile fierce eyes glared and rifle barrels
flashed from behind every rock, and the long fight
swayed a little back or a little forward with each upward
heave of the stormers or rally of the soldiers. For
hours the combatants were so near that a stone or a
taunt could be thrown from one to the other. Some
scattered sangars still held their own, though the Boers
had passed them. One such, manned by fourteen
privates of the Manchester Fiegiment, remained untaken,
but had only two defenders left at the end of the bloody
day.

With the coming of the light the 53rd Field Battery,
the one which had already done so admirably at
Lombard’s Kop, again deserved well of its country.
It was impossible to get behind the Boers and fire
straight at their position, so every shell fired had to
skim over the heads of our own men upon the ridge and
so pitch upon the reverse slope. Yet so accurate was
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the fire, carried on under an incessant rain of shells
from the big Dutch gun on Bulwana, that not one shot
miscarried and that Major Abdy and his men succeeded
in sweeping the further slope without loss to our own
fighting line. Exactly the same feat was equally well
performed at the other end of the position by Major
Blewitt’s 21st Battery, which was exposed to an even
more searching fire than the 53rd. Any one who has
seen the iron endurance of British gunners and marvelled
at the answering shot which flashes out through the
very dust of the enemy’s exploding shell, will understand
how fine must have been the spectacle of these two
batteries working in the open, with the ground round
them sharded with splinters. Eye-witnesses have left it
upon record that the sight of Major Blewitt strolling up
and down among his guns, and turning over with his
too the last fallen section of iron, was one of the most
vivid and stirring impressions which they carried from
the fight. Here also it was that the gallant Sergeant
Bosley, his arm and his leg stricken off by a Boer shell,
cried to his comrades to roll his body off the trail and
go on working the gun.

At the same time as — or rather earlier than — the
onslaught upon Caesar’s Camp a similar attack had
been made with secrecy and determination upon the
western end of the position called Waggon Hill. The
barefooted Boers burst suddenly with a roll of rifle-fire
into the little garrison of Imperial Light Horse and
sappers who held the position. Mathias of the former,
Digby-Jones and Dennis of the latter, showed that ‘two
in the morning’ courage which Napoleon rated as the
highest of military virtues. They and their men were
surprised but not disconcerted, and stood desperate to
a slogging match at the closest quarters. Seventeen
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sappers were down out of thirty, and more than half the
Httle hody of irregulars. This end of the position was
feebly fortified, and it is surprising that so experienced and
sound a soldier as Ian Hamilton should have left it so.
The defence had no marked advantage as compared with
the attack, neither trench, sangar, nor wire entanglement,
and in numbers they were immensely inferior.
Two companies of the 60th Kifles and a small body of
the ubiquitous Gordons happened to be upon the hill and
threw themselves into the fray, but they were unable to
turn the tide. Of thirty-three Gordons under Lieutenant
MacNaughten thirty were wounded.4 As our men
retired under the shelter of the northern slope they were
reinforced by another hundred and fifty Gordons under
the stalwart Miller-Wallnutt, a man cast in the mould
of a Berserk Viking. To their aid also came two
hundred of the Imperial Light Horse, burning to assist
their comrades. Another half-battalion of Pdfles came
with them. At each end of the long ridge the situation
at the dawn of day was almost identical. In each the
stormers had seized one side, but were brought to
stand by the defenders upon the other, while the British
guns fired over the heads of their own infantry to rake
the further slope.

It was on the Waggon Hill side, however, that the
Boer exertions were most continuous and strenuous and
our own resistance most desperate. There fought the
gallant de Villiers, while Ian Hamilton rallied the
defenders and led them in repeated rushes against the
enemy’s line. Continually reinforced from below, the
Boers fought with extraordinary resolution. Never will
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any one who witnessed that Homeric contest question the
valour of our foes. It was a murderous business on
both sides. Edwardes of the Light Horse was struck
down. In a gun-emplacement a strange encounter took
place at point-blank range between a group of Boers and
of Britons. Be Villiers of the Free State shot Miller Wallnut dead,
Ian Hamilton fired at de Villiers with
his revolver and missed him. Young Albrecht of the
Light Horse shot de Villiers. A Boer named de Jaeger
shot Albrecht. Digby-Jones of the Sappers shot de
Jaeger. Only a few minutes later the gallant lad, who
had already won fame enough for a veteran, was himself
mortally wounded, and Dennis, his comrade in arms and
in glory, fell by his side.

There has been no better fighting in our time than
that upon Waggon Hill on that January morning, and
no better fighters than the Imperial Light Horsemen
who formed the centre of the defence. Plere, as at
Elandslaagte, they proved themselves worthy to stand in
line with the crack regiments of the British army.

Through the long day the light maintained its
equilibrium along the summit of the ridge, swaying a
little that way or this, but never amounting to a repulse
of the stormers or to a rout of the defenders. So
intermixed were the combatants that a wounded man
more than once found himself a rest for the rifles of his
enemies. One unfortunate soldier in this position
received six more bullets from his own comrades in their
efforts to reach the deadly rifleman behind him. kt
four o'clock a huge bank of clouds which had towered
upwards unheeded by the struggling men burst suddenly
into a terrific thunderstorm with livid lightnings and
lashing rain. It is curious that the British victory at
Elandslaagte was heralded by just such another storm.
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Up on the bullet-swept hill the long fringes of fighting
men took no more heed of the elements than would two
bulldogs who have each other by the throat. Up the
greasy hillside, foul with mud and with blood, came the
Boer reserves, and up the northern slope came our
own reserve, the Devon Regiment, fit representatives of
that virile county. Admirably led, the Devons swept
the Boers before them, and the Rifles, Gordons, and
Light Horse joined in the wild charge which finally
cleared the ridge.

But the end was not yet. The Boer had taken a
risk over this venture, and now he had to pay the stakes.
Down the hill he passed, crouching, darting, but the
spruits behind him were turned into swirling streams,
and as he hesitated for an instant upon the brink the
relentless sleet of bullets came from behind. Many
were swept away down the gorges and into the Klip
River, never again to be accounted for in the lists
of their field-cornet. The majority splashed through,
found their horses in their shelter, and galloped oft
across the great Bulwana Plain, as fairly beaten in as
fair a fight as ever brave men were yet.

The cheers of victory as the Devons swept the ridge
had heartened the weary men upon Caesar’s Camp to a
similar effort. Manchesters, Gordons, and Rifles, aided
by the fire of two batteries, cleared the long- debated
position. Wet, cold, weary, and without food for twentysix hours, the bedraggled Tommies stood yelling and
waving, amid the litter of dead and of dying.

It was a near thing. Had the ridge fallen the town
must have followed, and history perhaps have been
changed. In the old stiff-rank Majuba days we should
have been swept in an hour from the position. But the
wily man behind the rock was now to find an equally wily
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man in front of him. The soldier had at last learned
something of the craft of the hunter. He clung to his
shelter, he dwelled on his aim, he ignored his dressings,
he laid aside the eighteenth-century traditions of his
pigtailed ancestor, and he hit the Boers harder than
they have ever been hit in history yet. No return
may ever come to us of their losses on that occasion;
133 dead bodies were returned to them from the ridge
alone, while the slopes, the dongas, and the river each
had its own separate tale. No possible estimate can
make it less than seven or eight hundred of dead and of
wounded, while some place it at a much higher figure.
Our own casualties were very serious and the proportion
of dead to wounded unusually high, owing to the fact
that the greater part of the wounds were necessarily of
the head. In killed we lost 13 officers, 135 men. In
wounded 28 officers, 244 men — a total of 420. Lord
Ava, the honoured son of an honoured father, the fiery
Dick-Cunyngham, stalwart Miller-Wallnutt, the brave
boy sappers Digby-Jones and Dennis, Adams and
Packman of the Light Horse, the chivalrous Lafone — we
had to mourn quality as well as numbers. The grim
test of the casualty returns shows that it was to the
Imperial Light Horse (ten officers down, and
the regiment commanded by a junior captain), the Manchesters,
the Gordons, the Devons, and the 2nd Rifle Brigade that
the honours of the day are due.

In the course of the day two attacks had been made
upon other points of the British position, the one on
Observation Hill on the north, the other on the
Helpmakaar position on the east. Of these the latter
was never pushed home and was an obvious feint, but
in the case of the other it was not until Schutte, their
commander, and forty or fifty men had been killed and
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wounded, that the stormers abandoned their attempt.
At every point the assailants found the same scattered
but impenetrable fringe of riflemen, and the same
energetic batteries waiting for them. It was their first
direct attack upon a British fortified position, and it is
likely to be their last.

Throughout the Empire the course of this great
struggle was watched with the keenest solicitude and with
all that painful emotion which springs from impotent
sympathy. By heliogram to Buller, and so to the farthest
ends of that great body whose nerves are the telegraphic
wires, there came the announcement of the attack. Then
after an interval of hours came ‘everywhere repulsed,
but fighting continues.’ Then, ‘Attack continues.
Enemy reinforced from the south.’ Then ‘Attack
renewed. Very hard pressed.’ There the messages
ended for the day, leaving the Empire black with
apprehension. The darkest forecasts and most dreary
anticipations were indulged by the most temperate and
best informed London papers. For the first time the very
suggestion that the campaign might be above our
strength was made to the public. And then at last there
came the official news of the repulse of the assault. Far
away at Ladysmith, the weary men and their sorely
tried officers gathered to return thanks to God for His
manifold mercies, but in London also hearts were
stricken solemn by the greatness of the crisis, and lips
long unused to prayer joined in the devotions of the
absent warriors.